VERMILLION – After appearing on the video board three (three!!!) times at a Timberwolves game last year with his family, fourth-grader Will Richter knew what to do when the cameraman pointed to him during Thursday night’s 9A championship game in South Dakota.

The red-and-white face-painted youngster looked directly at the camera and started excitedly cheering on his team.

“I just looked over and saw him pointing at me,” said Will. “Then I did what I did – I went wild.”

Video of the Britton-Hecla super-fan was tweeted out by SDPB’s Nate Wek and quickly began to spread, gaining over 50 retweets and nearly 200 likes in just a few hours.

“After the game, I probably had 50 messages with texts and what-not with pictures of Will and him going crazy,” Kyla Richter, Will’s mom and principal at Britton elementary, said. “It was a lot of fun.”

“I had a bunch of friends go onto the field (afterward the game) and talk to me about it,” Will proudly added.

Will got the idea to paint his face with the school colors after seeing a few Colman-Egan fans at the 9B championship game earlier that morning.

“Will suggested it,” Kyla explained. “He told me what he wanted and they quickly did it when we were eating out beforehand.”

As for the video itself, Will’s father, Bill Richter, said the shot of Will going wild with the fans from both towns cheering on the Braves in the background exemplifies what makes high school football so special in smaller communities like Britton and Hecla.

“There’s something about that shot, and it’s not because of Will or anything else, but people really related with that,” he said. “The excitement of what some of this stuff is all about, kids trying hard and competition and towns getting behind their small-town teams. It was a special deal. Those guys did a dang good job at SDPB. It’s pretty cool.”